HOLS ON HOLD
TRANSPORT SEC SAYS DON’T BOOK TO GO AWAY THIS SUMMER... EVEN ON A STAYCATION
MILLIONS of people planning holidays after lockdown have been left in limbo after transport secretary Grant Shapps told them to forget about booking breaks – at home or abroad.
A month after health secretary Matt Hancock promised a ‘Great British summer’ – and revealed he had booked a break in Cornwall – his cabinet colleague said holidays were ‘off the cards’ until Covid vaccines reached everyone.
He warned: ‘Don’t go ahead and book holidays for something which, at this stage, is illegal to do – whether here or abroad. You shouldn’t be booking holidays internationally or domestically.’ The warning infuriated travel industry bosses and Tory backbenchers.
MP Sir Charles Walker said: ‘This is becoming an extended exercise in almost studied and deliberate cruelty for a nation now that is increasingly anxious and under pressure. There’s a
lot of people who have seen a lot of hope evaporate.’
Prime minister Boris Johnson – who last week said he was optimistic about summer travel – tried to calm the row while seeming to duck the issue.
After a No.10 spokesman insisted booking a break was ‘of course a choice for individuals’, the PM said it was ‘just too early to say’.
He told a Downing Street briefing: ‘In the week of February 22, we’ll be setting out the road map out of lockdown and that’s the best I can give.
‘We’re just going to have to be a little bit patient.’
He said he was in talks with the travel industry, adding: ‘What businesses want is a cautious and pragmatic approach we don’t have to reverse.’
Brian Strutton, of the pilots’ association Balpa, said: ‘Airlines are drowning. But rather than throwing us a life raft, the transport secretary has just thrown a bucket of cold water at us.’ Julia Lo Bue-Said, of the Advantage Travel Partnership, said that ministers had a ‘flippant disregard for a sector that is critical to re-establishing global Britain’.
She said: ‘Travel is more than simply holidays. We comprise thousands of businesses across the country, employing millions of people which support both leisure and business travel, who are exasperated and unable to plan for the months ahead.’
Travel consultant Paul Charles, of the PC Agency, challenged Mr Shapps, insisting: ‘Can government stop 40million UK vaccinated people travelling this summer?’
The row broke out as the number of new coronavirus infections fell 28 per cent in a week, and the PM confirmed the UK was on target to vaccinate everyone over 50 by the end of April.
But as 1,001 more Covid-19 deaths were reported, he said it was too soon to be certain what effect vaccinations were having on the pandemic.
Mr Shapps revealed his own 89-yearold father was fighting for his life after catching coronavirus in hospital. And he defended the new border controls, which could see travellers jailed for ten years if they lied about returning from one of 33 countries on a ‘red list’ from Monday.
In a BBC Radio 4 interview, he said: ‘It is serious if people put others in danger by deliberately misleading.
‘What we’re talking about now are mutations and that is a different matter, because we don’t want to be in a situation where we later on discover that there’s a problem with vaccines.
‘I think the British public would expect pretty strong action.’
Labour last night demanded Mr Shapps ‘level with the public’, as well as travel and transport companies, to clear up the confusion.
In a letter to him, shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon wrote: ‘ The mixed messages coming from the government on summer holidays are creating chaos for families and businesses. Today, you said that people should not book a holiday at this time.
‘But just a few days ago, the prime minister said he was “optimistic” about people being able to go away, and the health secretary – like many other families – appears to have already booked his trip.’